


Probably

by takethislove



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining, minor angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8980111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethislove/pseuds/takethislove
Summary: 1700ish words of something or nothing. A little (a lot) pining, no particular plot, WHO KNOWS?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sincere apologies for any wonky tense changes, spelling/grammar oversights, etc, etc!

The thing is, he was in love with Harry Styles once. Once, past tense, no longer, and Nick's alright with that. Mostly. He wasn't always (mostly) alright with it, enough nights spent on Aimee's living room floor forlornly nursing a can of warm Stella in a manner that he likes to imagine is reminiscent of a black and white Belgian movie notched on his liver to make sure he doesn't forget that at thirty two years old he really should be entirely over being hung up on a pop (movie? fashion?) star that he's seen precisely once in 2016. So, no, he wasn't in love with him on January 20th when, drunk on cupcakes and affection, Harry shoved his hand into Nick's right there across the table and went straight back to his conversation as if it hadn’t made everyone at the table double take. He wasn't in love with him then or for a single day after that either. 

And then Harry’s gone after that because, obviously, and it was August and his birthday and Harry wasn't there. Nick hadn't expected him to be, not really, but there's always been that stupid, reckless glimmer of hope that he's never quite been able to extinguish completely, so he's unreasonably disappointed anyway. He's thankful for sangria and hot Spanish nights and warm, friendly arms around his middle at night so he doesn't feel quite so fucking lonely when he dozes off in front of the firepit. He’s thankful for the text that feels like an olive branch for something he can’t define on the morning of his birthday, Harry’s name right there in the middle of the screen in between Intern Number One and Jane (New Number!!!). He’s irritated that he’s thankful for it too, that something as simple as picking up a phone to shoot off a quick ‘Happy birthday, Grim, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! H x’ in between probable blowjobs from leggy supermodels queued up on their knees is something to be thankful for at all. It’s his birthday, though, and he can pout if he want to and he does for all of the five minutes that it takes him to make it down the stairs, laughing by the bottom of the flight as yet another helium-filled balloon knocks against his head. 

September, October, November go by. Dates that went nowhere, dates that went somewhere before Nick noticed that there was a squint eyebrow or a distaste for Pig's breath in the morning (his own distaste irrelevant, naturally) and that was that, wasn't it? He waved off accusations of 'picky' and 'nobody good enough' with exasperated good humour because it wasn't that. It was just... why should he have to settle? He had a good life, good, good friends, good job, and he didn't need a good man to complete the picture, thank you very much. He was all independent woman-ing up on this thing and that was just the way he liked it. He barely gives Harry a thought, three copies of Another Man – each bought from a different WH Smiths so he doesn’t look like a weirdo even though he scans them through the self-checkout each time – aside. It’s art, isn’t it? It’s good to have coffee table material. They don’t make it onto his coffee table, a raised eyebrow from Collette when she peers into his straining plastic bag meaning that they end up in his bedside table drawer not to be uncovered again.

Except then December came around and he finds himself running. "I _promised_ ," he whines down the phone balanced between shoulder and ear as he tries to work in a calf stretch at the same time, the grass frosty and crunchy beneath his trainers. It's unseasonably warm in London this winter, but the park is still chilly enough if he gets there before the sun's fully lifted in the sky. A smug flair in him that it's Christmastime and he's still Working Out! Running! Exercising! adds to the appeal all things told. "I'm really sorry, I’ll make it up, yeah?" It's barefaced lies and he's not convincing anyone, but he can convince himself that he's fooling them for the time that it takes to get himself back to Oldham and that's good enough for him. He loves a Christmas party, he does, loves karaoke though nobody loves him and karaoke, but Alexa was so excited when she called to tell him that Harry could come and it makes Nick’s stomach churn in a way that’s decidedly nauseating. 

So, instead, he spends the night on his mum’s couch not-moping as the Snaps and Instagrams and Tweets alluding to fun that he’s not having roll in. It’s alright really, Liv keeps him distracted with her latest boy tales (he’s loath to call them woes when it sounds like she firmly has the upper hand in each situation) and the kettle stays on all night, so it’s not so bad really. 

Nick ignores the first call just after midnight and the second one almost exactly thirty minutes later. He resolutely turns his back to his phone in his old narrow single bed and waits until the blink of the light ricocheting off the walls stops. The third call doesn’t come until a couple of hours later and he could have turned his phone off, he knows, but that’s, like, against nature or something and maybe there’s a bit of him that’s sort of hoping it’ll come. Nonetheless, he does a very good show of huffing down the phone when he answers, over egging it in the hopes that it’ll cause a pitch at the other end that’ll annoy Harry. Except he quickly discovers that it’s not Harry, it’s a friend of a friend that Nick’s met a handful of times using Harry’s phone to berate him for not being there. He can’t keep the edge of his voice when he pleads duty in the form of family, but apparently he’s not interesting enough to hold someone’s drunk attention at 2:30am and the girl – what was her name again? Something with a R, he thinks – laughingly passes the phone back off to its owner who chips in with a slightly blurred, slightly too fast, “Sorry, Grimmy, missyaloveya,” before he’s gone again. It’s 2:30am and he’s unreasonably disappointed again.

He does sleep after that and when he wakes it’s with sore knees where they’ve folded in his sleep, the bed just a bit too small for him now, and to one last missed call and a voicemail. 4:21am says the recording and then it’s just Harry. Harry sounding distant and drunk and like he’s about to throw up any second – Nick recognises the tell-tale hard swallow of a retch – and so far away from home whilst being closer than he’s been in so long that it takes every ounce of willpower he has not to call him back right that second and book him a train and put him downstairs in the middle of his mum’s couch, replacing himself. 

“I missed you tonight,” he says, “I thought – you know. I assumed you’d be here.”

He tells a story about the Spice Girls and Nick’s snorting into his phone attractively as if it’s a funny story. It’s not, too unfocused and unruly, but Harry always did manage to make him laugh without telling a joke. Sometimes even when he did tell a joke, if he was particularly lucky. He waits out the whole message and hits 2 to replay the message before he even puts his glasses on.

Boxing Day is the best parts of the holidays, Nick reckons. It’s Christmas without the present opening, cooking, making nice pressure of Christmas Day and he spends it the way he imagines God intended: in his trackies and glasses, without washing his hair, and with an open bottle of something fizzy tucked between his thigh and the couch all day. He’s halfway through a box of After Eights with Love Actually on the telly when the doorbell goes and even though he drapes himself over the arm to hopefully listen for the sounds of someone else shuffling to the door, no Christmas miracle appears and he’s forced to his own feet, calling out to the house, “I’ll just go then, will I?” There’s the sound of someone calling back from upstairs and he can’t make it out the words, but he’s sure it’s aptly cutting. 

He opens the door to Harry Styles. Harry Styles who he is still, on the 26th December 2016, not in love with. Harry Styles who has apparently driven the thirty odd miles north on Boxing Day to, “Did you bring me turkey?”

Harry looks down at the tinfoiled plate in his hands as if he’s surprised to see it there and the move makes all of his hair swoosh forward and then back when he looks back up, long enough again to have some movement, short enough to end up roughly where it started. “Yeah. Thought you might be out.” 

“You thought we might be out of turkey? On Boxing Day?” He’s not really incredulous, actually, because it seems exactly appropriate from him and Nick can’t really do anything except step back and let him in and quickly lick his thumb to rub at the gravy stain on his t-shirt when Harry’s back is retreating into the kitchen. “Hello everyone,” he calls out as if he’s there every other day for a cup of tea, as if this is a place where he belongs, where he’s part of the furniture and it’s weird is what it is. 

“Right. Well. You can put that there next to all the other turkey and I’ll…” Nick glances around the kitchen for inspiration, but Harry’s already a step ahead of him, kettle flicked on and his bum settled up on a kitchen counter as he twists awkwardly to reach a couple of clean mugs out of the cupboard behind him. “I’ll do nothing,” he ventures because Harry’s apparently on top of this making Nick feel like a stranger in his own sort-of-home thing. 

Mugs in hand and back on the sofa and parents out for a walk after a round of hellos and good to see yous, Harry asks what they’re watching even though the screen frozen on Hugh Grant dancing down a staircase is kind of the biggest giveaway and Nick doesn’t believe that he doesn’t already know the answer. By the time Emma Thomson is having her heart broken Harry’s tucked his empty mug between his thighs and he’s shoved his hand into Nick’s and it’s been three hundred and forty one days since Harry last held his hand. He’s still not in love with him.

Probably.


End file.
